Russian President Vladimir Putin says he interprets Donald Trump’s remarks about their planned meeting in Budapest as a postponement, not a cancellation. The comments were made in Moscow on Thursday and published on the Kremlin’s website.
“I am familiar with this statement. The U.S. president decided to cancel or postpone this meeting. He is rather talking about postponing this meeting. What can be said? Dialogue is always better than confrontation, than some disputes or, even more so, war. Therefore, we have always supported continuing the dialogue and we support it now,” Putin said.
“And for me, and for the American president, it would be a mistake to take this lightly and to walk out of that meeting without the expected result,” he added. He reminded that the summit in Budapest was proposed by the United States and that, under a bilateral agreement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov should meet beforehand.
On new U.S. sanctions against Russia, Putin acknowledged they are “serious in nature and will have certain consequences.” At the same time, he expressed confidence they would “not significantly affect” Russia’s “economic well-being.” “This is an attempt to put pressure on Russia.” “But no self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever decide anything under pressure,” he continued.
The new restrictions, Putin said, “do not strengthen Russian-American relations, which had only just begun to recover.” “With such actions, the U.S. administration is damaging Russian-American relations,” he concluded.
